July cotton estimate retained at 312 lakh bales

July cotton estimate retained at 312 lakh bales Mumbai, Aug 12 (PTI): The Cotton Association has retained its cotton crop estimate in for 2018-19 in July at 312 lakh bales. In the last cotton season, total output stood at 365 lakh bales. The association has also maintained its cotton crop estimate for the Northern zone at the same level as in the previous month's estimate at 59 lakh bales, while for the central zone it has increased it by 50,000 bales after it increased the output from Gujarat by 1 lakh bales to 87 lakh bales while the estimates for Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu has been cut by 50,000 bales each.

************ Streaming platform Zee5 ties up with Videotx Streaming platform Zee5 has partnered with homegrown consumer electronics maker Videotex International under which it will offer over 100,000 hours of content in 12 languages which come pre-embedded smart TV brands Daiwa and Shinco of Videotex. Zee5 in the past year has entered into similar alliances with Cloudwalker, Vewd, Xiaomi MiTV, Samsung and LG and aims to further penetrate the smart TV market, to accelerate its progress towards the target of reaching 100 million viewers.

************ Tata Steel re-launches retail stores in new format Tata Steel has launched its steel retail store Steeljunction in a new format in Kolkata, which will provide a one stop destination for consumers. The store will showcase steel products catering to four consumer segments - home dcor and gifting, home building, home making and tools and implements.

************ HIL net slips 22% on higher interest outgo Building material solutions company HIL has reported a 21.92 percent decline in net for the June quarter at Rs 40.63 crore due to higher expenses mainly on the back of increase in finance cost and employee benefit expenses. Total income increased nearly 53 percent during the quarter under review to Rs 768.10 crore and expenses jumped 65 percent to Rs 701.20 crore.

Finance cost increased to Rs 9.56 crore from Rs 88 lakh in Q1 FY19. Also, the employee benefit cost stood at Rs 91.25 crore as against Rs 30.37 crore a year-ago. ************ WPP hires R Raina as CEO of brand activation arm WPP group's experiential marketing and brand activation agency Geometry Encompass has hired back Ranjit Raina as the chief executive. In his earlier stint he was the chief operating officer till 2014, when he moved on to lead his own business..